‘When you smile, the whole world smiles with you’, a dentist's philosophy and practice.

Dr Ved Berani, founder and principal dentist of Healthy Smiles Dental Group is not new to winning accolades. Their latest victory is receiving the Whitehorse Excellence in Business Award 2023. Along with his wife, Priyanka Berani, the co-founder and backbone of this successful dentistry practice, he leads the business on innovation, development, and growth. With forty- five employees now, they are always open to new customers and changing how the community looks at dentistry. They are always looking at improving themselves. With seven to eight awards behind them in the last three years and some at the national level, they now believe in becoming more efficient.Their pathos of business is defined in its simplicity, their epitome of caring and nurturing in the community.

So, we at G'day India couldn't resist the opportunity to speak to the man behind the beautiful smiles.

How does it feel to receive the  Whitehorse Excellence in Business Award for 2023?

It feels ecstatic. It is overwhelming in a positive way because our practices are associated with the  Whitehorse community and council. When you receive an award from the business leaders within the community, there's a sense of achievement and accomplishment. 

 In what way does Healthy Smile Dental Group stand out from other dental practices? 

Whitehorse community and council would have about two hundred dental practices nearby. Our one-stop dental practice offers everything, from sleep dentistry to children's dentistry, orthodontics, dental implants, and complex oral surgery. All under one roof in one building. With the help of fourteen dental practitioners who work six days a week, it is different.Our firm commitment to the patients is being there for them when they need us. So, we have a triage emergency system   used in hospital practice that prioritizes patients based on urgency. In case of any emergencies, regardless of whether appointments are available, this is a unique feature in our practice.

How Healthy Smiles remove fear often associated with dentistry?

So, dental fear, dental anxiety, and dental phobia are prevalent conditions in the community. Hundreds and thousands of patients do not see the dentist for oral problems from the fear of the noise, with the water in the mouth, the inability to swallow, and a gag reflex. Numerous conditions prevent people from accessing good dental care, so we have offered our patients multiple sedation options. Again, it is not available in your regular dental practice. We offer everything from oral sedation to laughing gas to full general anesthetic in one location. So, we are the only dental practice in the eastern region of Melbourne with a registered day surgery dedicated to preventive procedures registered with the Department of Health and Human Services.

From your perspective, what is the significance of a healthy smile? 

A healthy smile is the gateway to confidence and a sense of good health, which is essential to someone's physical and mental health. Bad breath, pain, oral infection can play into someone’s moral.So, the minute we start our journey to improving the health of the gum’s parts of our mouth, we automatically see a shift in our customer's persona. The ability to look positively at life t is a huge change we can bring to the customer's life journey.

What strategies and values underlie the provision of seven-star customer care till the smiles?

Our value systems are ingrained in what we call a promise to our patients. We take responsibility for what treatments we provide for a patient. Second, we are authentic and genuine. We are the practice; we believe our treatments for our patients should be the same as those we would for our own families. 

That helps us deliver genuine, authentic, honest dental services. We are courageous; courage coverage is an essential aspect of a value where we encourage our team members to speak up and talk about what other improvements we can do in practice, not be afraid to express their opinions; that has created a culture of contribution. Thus, improving and continuing in innovative practice. One other aspect of value is empathy and compassion. We all have exceptional training in dealing with fearful patients; we use specific psychological techniques, talk to these patients, and get to the initial consultations with the help of knowledge and empathy. And once we've established that one-on-one relationship and a connection, the rest of the journey becomes much more accessible.

Please shed some light on the commitments and efforts necessary to become Melbourne's most reputable cosmetic dentists.

 Our commitment to excellent quality starts with ensuring we deliver our patients the best possible care possible.  We have a robust emphasis on what we call informed consent, taking a lot of time to slowly review all the options to help them understand what's available.  Once they have gone through all the options and understand the consequences, the decision-making is in the hands of the patients, which makes them empowered.Ninety-five per cent of procedures in the dental industry are isolated in nature, so quality care and ethical treatment are an optimum priority for us. This is our road to success.

As smiles are integral to our humanity, what personal significance does this hold for you and your practice?

These are the two main important things right now when you meet somebody. If you smile, ninety per cent of your battle is won. When you smile, it is almost impossible for the person looking at you not to smile; smiling to smile is the human connection. Once we establish that, a conversation, relationship, and friendship start.We use a smile strategically, which is purposefully making sure that every single chance we get with somebody we know or don't know or are connected in grief, the smile is always a starting point. Use a smile as much as you can. The more you smile, the more it becomes impossible for the other person not to smile.        

What keeps you and your team going?

We have team meetings to discuss what else we can do to improve ourselves.We substantially focus on training and hiring the right people into the practice. We don't hire people based on their resumes; we hire people based on their attitude. With the right team members with the right empathetic attitude and compassionate heart, we can always provide technical training to those people.The key to our commitment is to make sure that we build a team and a culture that invites people into a home and not into a clinical dental practice.

By Nandita Chakraborty